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gbjbaanb writes in with a story about plans to introduce an electronic identity system in Europe. "On Wednesday, the European Commission published a strategy document aimed at setting up systems to protect children online. In the document — but not in the accompanying press release nor the citizens' summary — the Commission mentioned that it will soon propose a 'pan-European framework for electronic authentication,' full details will be announced on 30th May. The launch of the strategy follows a push to strengthen internet security in the EU. It also outlined legal measures to make it easier for people to use a single e-ID for online services across borders, which would underpin a move toward a pan-European framework for electronic identification, authentication and signature (Pefias) framework."

I've become very skeptical of the entire EU project of the last few years. I thought it was democratically based, making rational decisions in the common interest of the people. Introducing common laws to help life easier for people across the EU by identifying areas where individual nations might not be as effective as a unit. But now in the last 5 years I've seen measure after measure which are raw power-grabs by the EU to try an mitigate the sovereignty of individual member states.

Now we have yet another measure to "save the children" because anyone who might be against such a measure is an evil kiddy fiddler. I highly expect this to become mandatory and sprawl into not just children but everyone needs to be on this system. Perhaps I've just become skeptical of my own government and politicians willingness to sign over our hard fought independence that anything the power hungry EU puts down now is another attempt to control the people of Europe under a single entity.

The article itself states that this is likely to become mandatory but that there no clear definitions regarding the limits of the system.

Meh. I was always told the EU was originally set up to stop Germany ever becoming too powerful again.

Well, that worked well didn't it.

The fear being that Germany (or anybody that got too powerful) would start another war. Considering that we are in the longest time of European peace in recorded history... yeah, i would say it worked pretty well...

You are joking, right? Just because you don't see marching tanks in the streets, doesn't mean it's not a form of war. Let alone Germany that would under no circumstances allow it's name be blemished with YAW. But don't kid yourself; that's the new form of warfare: absolute and transparent financial control.

Germany is actually quite powerful economically at the moment, mainly because in the last 17 years its had an excess of capital due to the enormous trade surplus which its had thanks to the Euro and smaller nations now having the ability to buy German goods without having to worry about exchange rates between the Deutsche Mark and the Italian Lira, the Irish Punt, the Greek Drachma or the Portuguese escudo.

Now the problem for Germany came when their banks tried to use that surplus cash, they lent it out to institutions for practically nothing. These institions then could then lend to riskier and riskier prospects because the cost of the risk was so reduced by the cheap and availability of money being provided by German and other major European banks so that even if those risky loans collapsed, they could simply avail of the cheap money to correct for such fluctuations.

The EU didn't make Germany weaker, it made Europe stronger as a whole, until they started some high risk enterprises. I'm willing to say that I don't think the EU was designed from the start to become what its become today, but certain financial interests have a way of corrupting things to their way of thinking

As events progress it's hard not to look at the EU and the Eurozone and see them as formative tools for a German dominated Europe. As the golden rule says, he who has the gold makes the rules.

Now admittedly Germany is backing into it, but one gets the feeling that the old Kaiser and Hitler got it wrong and that the best way to dominate Europe wasn't shooting, it was creating vast capital reserves and waiting for everyone else to become insolvent, so Germany can "save" them.

The Euro in particular is the most powerful weapon yet invented for German domination of Europe, and the French, rather than taking on the traditional role of counterweight, has become a lapdog.

That's an interesting theory. It will be even more interesting to see whether it survives the French presidential election and the next major round of elections in Germany. If M. Hollande wins the presidency and makes good on his position to renegotiate the current agreements on European finances, that could be serious political trouble for Frau Merkel, who is already facing an uphill struggle at the next election. If she fails to win another term, the two big powerhouses who have driven the austerity agend

Oh come on. What happens if France repudiates th Franco-German relationship. It goes broke in a hurry. France needs that German economic engine just as much as the PIIGS (which is awfully close to including Belgium and the Netherlands as well). The only thing that will stop this is the German voter deciding they don't want to back the scheme. That may very well happen. But France, she's in no position to negotiate anything. If the Germans decide to pull back, France will almost instantly become a catastroph

Wrong, Germany suffered from a low trade surplus prior to the introduction of Euro in 2001, have a look at the historical balance of trade for Germany here [tradingeconomics.com]. You can see very noticable climb in trade surplus. This was a direct result of the introduction of the Euro.

You realize more often than not those "power grabs by the evil EU" are simply the member states' governments pushing unpopular laws through by the back door, then turning around and telling their populace "look, we don't want to do it, but we have to implement this EU directive"?

The Nice Treaty, which formalised the two tier Europe, the introduction of the Euro and its centralised monetary policy, the aborted EU Constitution which was then morphed into the Lisbon Treaty, the Fiscal Compact treaty which will reduce a governments ability to adopt fiscal policy. These are just off the top of my head. Now, member states government have had to approve them and in my own national case, a referendum was put had to be run, but in each of them(bar the last one which is due to be voted on at the end of the month), the Irish people voted No, until they were told, no that was the wrong answer, vote again.

Government are so terrified by the loss of structural loans and trade loss that they are unwilling to challenge the EU on these thing, why run the risk of losing out on revenue, we'll sell our sovereignty instead, that has a far less tangible impact on our budgets... until now. Again in my own national case we're told, you have no choice, you need another bailout, do what we want or we pull the trigger on the economic gun to your head. Whatever about the individual directives the EU issues, the macro effects of EU policy is killing national sovereignty and soon we really will have no choice, that "the man in Brussels/Frankfurt" says we have to do it so we have to do it.

"Irish people voted No, until they were told, no that was the wrong answer, vote again."

This argument is really sickening, in a normal parliamentary setting a complex legal document will undergo scrutiny by the MPs, the MPs may then make amendments, so if they are against the initial proposition from the government, the amendments may make the proposition acceptable.

For plebiscites, the same thing should naturally hold. However, it is not practical to crowd source amendments (or protocols as they are usuall

That's very interesting. I hadn't looked at the EU from this perspective, but it appears that you could following the same trajectory as the USA. Be warned!

The USA (under The Constitution) began as a voluntary agreement between independent states. Exactly as you described, we delegated certain authorities to a central government in a few areas (e.g. a monetary system and military) where it seemed we could be more effective as a unit.

As you can see from our example, the system was ultimately corrupted to the point that we now suffer under the reign of a massive, self-serving central government which has trampled the sovereignty of the states to serve its own self interests.

You're absolutely right to be skeptical of your government and extremely wary of any attempted EU power grabs. I'd caution you not to allow the destruction of your existence as independent states.

The USA (under The Constitution) began as a voluntary agreement between independent states. Exactly as you described, we delegated certain authorities to a central government in a few areas (e.g. a monetary system and military) where it seemed we could be more effective as a unit.

True, and at the time of creation or shortly after, it would most likely have been possible for a state to leave that agreement unilaterally without too much issue. However, over the years, things got more complicated as group funds and efforts were used for projects. What about the land of the Lousiana Purchase for example? What about Texas which had been added to the union after a war with Mexico to secure their borders and freedom paid for mostly with Northern money and lives just ten years before they l

But it's not. If you want it to be democratically based you need to give the power to elected representatives instead of having positions of power filled by deals between national governments. Or alternatively transfer those powers back to the national governments so you have control via the national parliaments. As it is now specific EU issues like the one in the article aren't much discussed during national elections - because that's not the main topic - and not much during EU elections - because the EU parliament doesn't have much power.

We need to make up our minds where we want to take this - make a decision and stick with it.

Well it was exactly in the past few years that the democratically elected EP has de facto seized power over the Union. I guess what you were trying to say is that the EU has become less federalistic over time, which is true, but the age of nationstates is over anyway and we should move on to a new era. Of course, care must be taken so that the increasing power of the Union doesn't get unchecked but the huge bureaucracy takes care of that for the moment. It's also unfair to blame the Union for a plan of a pr

There is nothing wrong with the EU project as such, however there are several implementation bugs, like the lack of parliamentary control. However, the memberstate governments and the nationalists do not want to have parliamentary control over the Union as it a) would prevent governments from blaming the EU when they push through a directive in the council without proper scrutiny (i.e. the member state gov made the shit up, but blames the EU) or b) infringes on their sovereignty (not that sovereignty will m

What makes you say all this? from my point of view the EU seems to come up with much saner laws than most individual member states.

Most states have signed up to ACTA for example yet the EU looks set to derail those signings. I suppose you can argue this infringes individual sovereignty but it's certainly not in a bad way - it implies the EU hasn't been corrupted by corporate interests to anywhere near the extent national governments have.

The same goes for things like consumer rights (mandatory 2 year warran

The only way to make any of these ID's secure is to have them linked to faces and biometrics, which are quickly accessible, and require both human and computer verifications. eg, put your thumb here Mr Up-To-Know-Good and let me check the fingerprints we have had on file since you were born, along with the drivers licence and passport we have on file for you, and any other data we have kept on you over the years. My problem with this system is, you can't have one without the other, and do we really want t

My problem with this system is, you can't have one without the other, and do we really want the other?

Nobody asked what you want. This is about corporate control, pure and simple. They're not looking to protect you, they're looking to exploit you.

See, anonymity on the Internet is causing lost profits, and we cannot have that. When the Internet became a shopping mall, control was given over to the corporations, and now it's all about what they want. And they want to know exactly who you are and exactly what you're up to.

Actually, the Commission do usually ask before they start writing directives. They tend to request comments from the public, though the public is in general not aware of this.

Yes, they ask you to write your comment on a sheet of A4 paper, fold it four ways and then place it where the sun don't shine.

There's a reason why the public in general is not aware of the "request for comments". Because it's a joke, a bit of theater to make you believe your opinion matters. Do you believe people are just crying out

There is no way to make these secure, biometrics do not work well enough and probably never will, no matter what the manufacturers of biometric readers would say

The supposedly hyper-secure completely unfakeable biometric passports were shown off in the USA at a security conference by the the firm who designed it, they had a reader setup to show all the details of a person on a sample passport, and then someone walked in with a passport that was accepted by the system as genuine, for Elvis....

Yet, it is still capitalized 'Papiere', which is also indicated by the fact that one pays Euro 28,80 for a German identity card ('Bundespersonalausweis', obligatory). Add at least Euro 6,00 for a biometric photo. I had pay do this today and I am totally pissed.

The Dutch solution: just use some existing authentication scheme. A few days ago, CapGemini proposed a report to our government, and one of the proposals in it was to see if we could integrate DigiD with.... wait for it.... Facebook Connect [webwereld.nl] (article in Dutch). DigiD is a digital identity scheme used by citizens to access Dutch government services like internal revenue and municipal services which require authentication. Hey, at least a Facebook account is free, right?

Is that really what you want? What this will boil down to is a (European) law that requires you and providers to only use the 'official' eId for authentification. No more privacy, no anonymity, big brother can log in everywhere you are.

Only partially true.It is only mandatory to be able to identify yourself.Whether you do this with a Personalausweis or a Reisepass ("passport") is up to you.Unless you require a passport for your travels, the Personalausweis is the cheaper alternative.

I am quite capable of identifying myself, when I choose to, with my speech alone.

The papieren are for the verification of my identity by a third party for the other agent in the transaction. These agents compel citizens to carry third party verification and can compel transactions.

I haven't seen a Swedish ID card for less than 45 euros, and I think passports and national ID cards are about 55 euros. Not that much more than the 40 euros you pay in Germany, but it still too much money for a collection of useless security features..

Native American Indian philosophy is that when your horse dies you should jump off.

In modern corporate society this is not the case. After all, the horse is a company asset and... We can lower the requirements and state that the dead horse its in fact exceeding expectations... We can claim the dead horse as a tax write off and send it on retraining... We can promote the dead horse to management and submit it a fine example of the breadth of our equity and diversity program... We can classify being dead as the perfect state of calm and transfer the horse to manager of HR

this could go on..... I am sure that with this crowd not only can we spend days flogging this dead horse... But we can do it creatively and in techno geek style

Now.. I am late for a meeting to fire a jockey for allowing his mount to.die...

These people won't give up until you need a licence to use the internet. At that point we will need a new internet.

What if authentication becomes mandatory for public sites (such as Slashdot)? I don't want to authenticate with my true identity, but I still want to use those services, and I have very good reason to not always post stuff under my true name. Not to hide stuff from the government, and I am actually OK with the authorities obtaining certain digital info on me, if I am suspect in a crime, and if a judge issues a "digital search warrant" (Of course neither condition will be added to this proposal, in NL they

That is of course, until opium in your veins runs out and you return to wonderful reality where today's children face far bigger threat from their parents' and relatives' abuse then from pretty much all other factors, unless they live in a third world country.

A subject that's very unsexy to talk about in libertrarian pipe dreams, I know.

where today's children face far bigger threat from their parents' and relatives' abuse

I suspect it isn't much of a threat, since a grand majority of people aren't murderers/rapists/abusers.

A subject that's very unsexy to talk about in libertrarian pipe dreams, I know.

Is it really just a libertarian pipe dream to want to be free from corrupt governments? Is it really just a libertarian pipe dream to accept that some casualties happen, but not everyone needs to be punished/harassed by the government because of it?

By the same measure, much bigger majority of people aren't child abusers as compared to just parents. Yet another rather nasty piece of reality for you.

Also, yes, it is. Every government, by definition must oppress to some extent. The only non-oppressing form of governing is anarchy. Every other form is oppressive to varying extent, because to exert control is to oppress freedom to not be controlled.

We have a very good example of how that works in Somalia. Power vacuum left by government will simply be filled in other ways, typically far more oppressive. They just won't be called "government". That's the reality of the libertarian dream, and why libertarian dream is in fact a pipe dream as proven by history of humanity thousands of times over. Like communism, it would work very if people were beings naturally inclined to think of greater good over short term personal benefit.

By the same measure, much bigger majority of people aren't child abusers as compared to just parents.

Yes...?

Every government, by definition must oppress to some extent.

Indeed. Government is a necessary evil. But that absolutely does not mean we should give them unlimited power. What power we do give them must be necessary and small. We must never let them engage in collective punishment (even if it's "for the children"), and we must never let them infringe upon our rights (again, even if it's "for the children").

Then again, I'm not really sure what your point was. But I've seen people who believe that because the government has the ability to do X, it should also h

Does anyone have any details on Pefias? (Is it an acronym, what does it stand for)

Have they been developing it in secret? All I can find is some Spanish text, perhaps it's a Spanish word? And some diplomat who is convinced that "only [this] Pefias" can provide what they need. So, developed in secret.

Anything else? "Unveiled this month" -- the summary of the article says Pefias, the linked PDF from the article does not use this acronym, or the expression it's derived from. The PDF does say "pan-European framework for electronic authentication" but not the longer version that explains the spelling of the acronym.

I was really looking for technical information. You know, like is it any different from PGP? Is there any reason it can't be made global? Will this card get me a disco

After reading a few paragraphs from the draft... i have a proposition for our EU overlords.

Instead of doing this, invest our money into cloning. Build a huge facility, supply enough funds to advance the research to point where human cloning is possible - then get your own clone. Establish a friendship with your clones, then take them out and treat them to a romantic dinner. After the dinner you should of course invite them back to your place, where you'd be finally able to go fuck yourself.

It can be an easy-to-use system that is not obligatory for everything, just for government-related tasks, or it could be obligatory just to browse. In the latter case, it is certainly about surveillance and big brother, rather than anything else.

As a European citizen (Swede) working in another country (Belgium), I have often felt that there are a couple of things that actually would do well to get centralized at a EU level. One such thing would be the social security number. All the sillyness that you have to go through before you get a local ID card and then that you have to carry two ID cards, one for each country, makes it rather strange. Especially upon repatriation when social security is transferred and you somehow have to show that the person with one ID is the same as the one with the other ID.
There are several other examples of stuff that are still national that simply would be better to put at a federal level (and other things that would be better to transfer down to regional level).

All the sillyness that you have to go through before you get a local ID card and then that you have to carry two ID cards, one for each country, makes it rather strange.

It's not even that consistent. As a British citizen living in Spain I'm unable to get a Spanish ID card, and the UK doesn't have them, so technically I should carry my passport on me at all times. And not only are the social security systems completely disconnected, but during 18 months when I was resident in Spain and working remotely for a

There is nothing (new) to be afraid of.
Many countries in Europe are already establishing their own citizen's online identification framework for state services. This document only defines the need for all the systems to be inter-operative. Enough with the Big Brother mambo-jambo.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(Revelation 13:16-18)

Every day I live in this country on this continent, I read the news and I get depressed, angered and scared. You can say what you want but if this bullshit keeps continuing we will be living in George Orwells 2012, I guarantee it.

E-id, knowing what was going to happen i waited one year to get mine, 40 months later the chip broke, i had to ask pre internet paper forms to fill in a tax form. Replacing it is free if i am happy with three visits to the administration and one month of patience. For 250€ i can get a next day copy. Am i still a citizen without my chip?

The other day, I was pondering using a universal system of public-key authentication for all financial transactions. Our current system is basically sharing a "secret" in order to authorize a transaction, whether it be a credit card number, a bank account number (in the case of checks or wire transfers), or a social security number (in the case of loans). Using a public key system (where the private key is difficult to compromise) to sign transactions would greatly limit the number of transactions that an identity thief could make, since the holder of the private key would have to be aware of the transactions. I'm not saying keeping the private key private is easy, but I think it is possible to find a solution that works well enough. (To give credit, I read about this idea somewhere; it's not mine.)

Back on topic, the government would probably be the entity to implement such a solution. While it would be great to reduce identity theft, there is also much potential for abuse. It could be required for access to the internet, for example. Even if a law was created saying that this system could only be used for financial transactions, we know how well that worked with Social Security numbers being only for Social Security. Any thoughts on this?

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to argue for or against, just looking for some more understanding.

Why is having to use an e-id an issue? Most people have already given up their identity and all personal information willingly on social/cloud services.

Is it that The Zuck/Sergei/Tim Cook/Bezos/Ballmer/... looks more trustworthy than the government to have all that information? I mean it is feasible that the government could actually use the data for something good like stopping a terrorist attack or pinching some c

Why is having to use an e-id an issue? Most people have already given up their identity and all personal information willingly on social/cloud services.

Because it's not the same thing. Yes, millions of stupid people have given all that information away on their pages. I have not. Are you saying that its okay that I can't have my privacy because the rest of the population is too ignorant to protect theirs?

The worst part about this is: No Child Was Protected In the Making of This Provision.

I mean, sure kiddy porn shows up on the internet, but the Internet isn't what produces it. Sickos with cameras and access to children do that. The children are not hu

Because "The Zuck" cannot go into a back room and pass a law which makes you a criminal based on the data in your record. A government can.
And then it's too late to go back and NOT give over the data....

In Belgium it is already law to have an ID on you.Besides alcohol control and once running a red light (Got a warning, not a ticket for the red light. Got a key chain for the negative alcohol control) I am one of the few people that I know who has been stopped by police at what looked at random.

I gave my papers, they checked them and then gave them back. A day later I saw them doing the same to a guy who was dressed similar like me the day before with a similar build and haircut, so they were clearly looking for somebody specific.

The only downside at this moment is that the law did not caught up yet. So for many contracts we still need to send in a signed paper. No scanning and no faxing. In other countries the same can be done by a mere phone call.

If they would allow the e-ID as a rightful signature, that would help a lot. The technoligy already exists.

If the police stop and ask me, I tell them who I am. I ask who they are. I don't demand to see papers that prove it.

Why should I be forced to adopt your totalitarian system, just to make life easier for you? Fuck you and your cherry flavoured beer.

(Which caused my Belgian friends great amusement, as I found it tasty despite being heterosexual and walking around the town with no ID on me. Shit, the worse that could've happened would've been getting d

You telling the police "I'm not a gut who robbed that bank" is not the same as having an ID that easily proves that.

Oh, I do apologise - I hadn't realised that bank robbers have to show valid ID as part of committing the crime. Because lets face it, that's the only way that having a different ID paper easily proves you aren't the one.

The Internet has been made to detect problems and route around it. It has always done so and will probably do so again with this silly proposal. Blocking websites hasn't worked one bit, blocking P2P traffic has proven impossible and now they want people to only get online if they give up their anonymity? I doubt this is going to ever get air borne if no website except a few government sites will ever require it.

Depophilia - the over protection of children at the detriment to their growth.ex. "You are such a depo, your kid is going to be a 40 year old virgin at this rate."ex2. "If you keep holding your kid in and hiding him from everything, he'll never grow up." (there are people who are genuinely like this and spit children out their holes just because they like to have kids around)

As much as I disagree with some of the man's decisions, Reagan once summed it up quite nicely:"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"